The Trust Board
The Will of the Trust’s Founder, the First Viscount Leverhulme, gave clear indications in 1925 for the pattern of governance which he believed to be appropriate for the conduct of the affairs of the Trust. In particular, he stated that there should be up to five Trustees and that these should where possible be drawn from the upper levels of management within his Company, the then Lever Brothers which in 1929 became a foundation for the formation of Unilever. In the period since the first awards made by the Trust (1933), this Trustee body has directed the business of the Trust, debating the merits of the proposals put to it and deciding the resulting outcome. In recent years, the Trustees have met on four occasions each year, three of these being for the consideration of applications to the Trust and one being for a more general strategic review. It has become apparent in this arrangement that there would be benefit in a modified pattern of working wherein the Trustees would act as the ultimate guardians of the Trust’s policies, notably in respect to its obligations as a charitable body, but where a larger grouping would be concerned with the more detailed conduct of business and notably with the decisions to be taken in response to the applications made to the Trust’s various schemes. This larger grouping, the Leverhulme Trust Board, would consist of up to ten members, all of whom would be, or would have been, closely involved in the senior management of Unilever. The necessary formal steps for the enactment of this change have now been completed and the Trust Board began its work at the November 2009 meeting for the review of project bids put to the Trust. There is confidence that the new arrangement serves to respect the wishes of the Founder and to provide an effective means for the conduct of the Trust’s affairs.
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